Getting published as a creative writer is hard. Very hard. We all understand that. There are lots of wonderful, inspirational posts out on the ‘net detailing how to succeed. There are fewer devoted to the reasons why you won’t get published.
You want to be published. So do I. So does everyone. Most of us aren’t going to get there. You want to, though. But there are probably some weaknesses holding you back.
I’ve put together 11 of the biggest reasons why you won’t make it as a published writer. Read through them and check yourself for these behaviours. If you can resist all of these Devilish temptations like double-fried doughnuts while you’re on a diet, then you’re on your way to success.
The 11 Deadly Writing Sins:
1. Giving up.
2. Abandonment.
3. Shyness.
4. Pride.
5. Inconsistency.
6. Apathy.
7. Laziness.
8. Research.
9. Respect.
10. Isolation.
11. Prayer.
Here we go!
Writing is hard sometimes. You know this, but sometimes, you forget it.
You start writing. It gets hard. You struggle. Then you give up. Chance of success? 0%. Dead in the water. Eaten by a Honey Badger.
This is the big one. I’d say 90% of the problems holding people back from achieving their goals in creative writing is giving up too early. I’ve already written about how the low barrier to entry to creative writing means you’re competing against a lot of other wannabe writers.
So how do you pull ahead of the pack? Determination. A genuine will to master your craft. Constant learning and curiosity. Resilience.
When should you give up? When you don’t want to be published any more. Until then, there’s always something you could be doing. Keep reading to find out more.
You don’t commit to finishing a project.
It’s easy to run out of momentum. Distractions can arise. You could get sick, have exams, get married, have a kid, go on holiday, or simply run out of steam. Your regular writing schedule – the one you promised yourself you’d keep – could be unavoidably interrupted for a few days, and you don’t get back into the swing of things after a break.
This is a trap.
Don’t fret about quality. Don’t worry about plot lines. Finish your damn project. If you do, two things will happen. One, you’ll be able to improve the quality if what you’ve written. There’s no story that critiquing and editing can’t improve, no matter how torrid it may be to start with.
Two, you’ll get a genuine feeling of satisfaction. There’s a world of difference between “I started really well on that one!” and “Well, it’s not the best thing ever, but it’s done.” Trust me, the latter is infinitely more satisfying.
Not finishing your writing projects is not just unproductive, it’s actively damaging. You subconsciously give yourself permission to fail again. You may very well start a new project, full of fire and vinegar. How likely is it that you’ll finish the new one?
“But my new idea is so much better”, I can hear you whining. Stop it. Your idea will be there when you’re done. Write it down somewhere so you won’t forget what you’ve come up with. And finish your first damn project.
If you don’t think you’ve got the mental and physical stamina to finish an epic, 350,000 word novel, don’t start one. Work up to it. Do some short stories to your own satisfaction. Write a 50,000 word novella. You can always incorporate what you’ve written into larger works later.
So you’ve finished a project. You’ve written a novel, a story, a collection of limericks about your workmates. Fantastic!
Two months later, it’s sitting as a file on your desktop. Maybe you’ve printed a copy out and it’s hiding in your desk drawer. What happened?
Either your fears or your ego got in the way. Your fear of rejection or ridicule stopped you from displaying your work to others. Your ego said ‘it’s not perfect enough’ and refused to let your first draft out of its sight.
This is illogical thinking, but it can be hard to see from the inside. I’m telling you now. If you’ve finished a work and more than a month has passed and you haven’t shown it to anyone, get off your butt and do it. Showing your work to fellow writers is easier and less painful than you imagine it might be. Why? Because fellow writers will appreciate how precious words are, and will treat yours with respect.
If you don’t have a thick skin, I can’t recommend showing your first-draft work to non-writers. Even well-intentioned friends and family will invariably say things that will cause you to tear out your own organs in existential despair.
But make sure you start showing your work around. Perfectionism is a trap. Constant analysis and re-writing is a trap. Avoid them.
You can’t edit your own work.
Being a one-draft wonder is seriously going to screw over your chances of creative writing success. Even if you have every intention of editing your own work, it may come to be that you simply can’t. This inability might stem from a reluctance to get rid of words you helped bring into being. It might come from fear that you’ll do more harm than good. Or you might simply be uncertain how to proceed.
This is something you’ll need to get over. Saying ‘that’s what an Editor is for’ is, unfortunately, totally wrong. An editor is far more likely to go ‘Re-write these three chapters and trim 10,000 words off the story overall’ than they are to provide you with an itemised list of suggestions for your perusal.
Take a deep breath. Get suggestions as to how your work can be improved. And get to it. To paraphrase Neil Gaiman, keep in mind that some feedback is better than others. If a reviewer says they don’t like something about your work, they’re probably right. If they say they don’t like something about your work and tell you how to fix it, it’s probably more useful to ignore their advice.
If you can’t do this, don’t mistake it for anything apart from misplaced egotism. Refusing to accept that your first draft is not a finished work of genius is self-delusion. Your work has the potential to be great. Trust me, it’s not as good as it could be the instant you write ‘The End’.
You don’t manage your own writing patterns.
Failing to manage your creative writing patterns is a surefire success-killer. There are some few people who can write in scraps and oddments, snatching ten minutes here and there, and eventually pull together a finished manuscript.
I cannot recommend trying this approach. Or if you do, have at least some structure in place. Decide on a word goal for every day of writing. Make sure you hit that goal.
For the rest of us, though, structure and management of your writing patterns is going to get you further than approaching things willy-nilly. Your brain adjusts to routine after a period of twenty to thirty days. Go on a 30-day trial and map your results. I don’t care if you chafe against the lack of freedom. It’s 30 days. You’d be amazed how much you can get done.
Deliberately cultivate patterns of writing that are likely to lead to your success. Approach this logically. Think about how you write now. Then think, ‘How successful would a reasonable stranger, looking in on how I’m going about this, expect me to be in five year’s time?’. Take action based on the answer.
You don’t care.
You’ve reached a point of helpless apathy. What is it you don’t care about? You don’t care about your story any more? If you don’t, who will?
Sometimes, you need a break. Take one. Start a new project. If this is genuinely what you need, you’ll feel good about it. Listen to yourself carefully. If this idea feels like you’re running away, you are. Be honest with yourself.
What if you don’t care about something else? Your characters? The plot? Editing your work? An impending deadline?
If you catch yourself saying ‘I don’t care’, don’t believe yourself. That voice comes from fear. Look deeper, identify the problem, and take an immediate, small, measurable step towards countering it.
If you say you don’t care because you don’t think you’re good enough, send your favourite 500 words to a friend by email and ask them what they think. If you think you don’t care because you feel you won’t get your project done, map it out on a piece of paper. Take pleasure in crossing off every block of 1,000 words.
If you don’t care about your characters, make them more interesting. Ask them, “What will it take from you to get back into my head, into my waking thoughts?”. Pay attention to what comes up.
If this sounds a little like a hokey therapy session, it’s meant to. That’s because apathy is fear disguising itself. Work through it.
You expect everyone else to do the work for you.
They won’t.
Editors and agents have other projects on the go. You are not, and will never be, the sole focus of their professional life. Nor is it reasonable for you to expect to be. It might feel like, once you’re heading down the road to publication, that you can take your foot off the effort-celerator. Don’t take that chance. There are still obstacles and hairy turns a-plenty up ahead, and you’ve come too far to stall now.
Take control of your own destiny. Do as much as you can. I can assure you that an author who is pro-active in making his writing team’s lives easier will get further than one who doesn’t. Ask what you can do to help. Stick to deadlines. Produce what’s asked of you, without complaint.
Get off your butt. Get stuff done. Come back here and read more once you’ve done it 
8. Research.
Writing is not a profession where you can ‘wing it’. Nor should you think you can. Check the back of any well-written books and you’ll see a big damn pile of acknowledgments. Know that those are the tips of the icebergs. When authors say there isn’t enough space to thank the people involved n writing their books, they mean it.
Know your material. And if you don’t, check with people who do. Cultivate friendships with the knowledgable, the fanatical, the hobbyists and the professionals. They can tell you how guns work, what swordfights feel like, what it’s like to chase and be chased. They can tell you how continents form, creatures evolve, hackers hack.
Failing first-hand experience, look things up. Wikipedia is a good starting point. Don’t be afraid to get books out of your library. Ask people for advice or suggestions. Email a university lecturer. Be nice to your sources of information.
Writing about a city? Get a map. Read up on local history. Add some colour. Talk to locals. Read a paper. Visit, more than once.
Writing speculatie fiction? Don’t think you’re getting off scott-free. You have a world of responsibility.
When you’re making things up, you’ve got a little more leeway. Not a lot. For a start, whatever you’re making up is bound to be borrowing from other people. Whether you know it or not, there are decades of history of writing that you’re either borrowing from, influenced by, or awkwardly unaware of. Not having read Lord of the Rings is no excuse for being surprised at an editor’s rejection of yet another 1,000 word epic fantasy with Rings of Power and Dragons and a Gandalf look-alike.
If you haven’t read the stories that come before yours in the genre you’re writing in, you don’t know what the terrain is. You’ll inevitably stumble over a meme or trope that’s been lying around for decades, and then everyone will point and laugh at you.
Do your damn homework.
Respect your professional team.
Respect. Their. Expertise.
I’m not going to tell you again. You think the writing gig is hard? You should, because you’re damn right. It’s long hours, little to no pay, and until you get you stuff published and out in the world, little to no damn recognition. And you don’t know the half of it.
The worse off, by far, are the people involved in publishing whose names don’t get in the limelights. Your publishers. Agents. Graphic designers. Marketing folk. Printers. Binders. Distributors. There’s a whole industry of people whose actual livelihoods depend on being able to produce and distribute and sell books.
Be nice to them. If you’ve taken any advice from writers, you’ll have a non-writing way of supporting yourself while you’re writing. Something else that pays the bills. Writing is something you do for fun, because you’re passionate about it, because you want the glory that comes from being an author. And fair enough, too.
This does not mean that you are allowed to be anything less than awesome to the people who will help you along the way. Their requests will be, for the most part, simple and reasonable. Go along with them whenever you can. You can bet your advance that any requests you get from your writing professionals that seems unreasonable will have a very, very, very good reason behind it. Find out what it is before letting even the slightest bit of petulance cross your brow.
If nobody knows who you are, you’re going to have a hard time getting your work out into the world. If you don’t know at least ten other people who are either wannabe writers, successful writers, or work in a writing-related field, you’ve got a problem.
Your problem? You’re too scared to network.
Or you don’t know how. One of the two.
I get it, talking to other people can be scary. If we were naturally outgoing people, we’d probably be telemarketers or in sales, not hunched over a keyboard in a darkened basement. Guess what? Your excuses for not going out into the world and interacting with people are running out.
If you’re reading this article, there’s a pretty damn good chance that you’re in ‘The Internet’. Which means you’re potentially connected to hundreds of millions of people, some of whom like the same things as you.
Reach out and talk to some of them. Writers are, for the most part, inveterate talkers. I went to my first-ever Con late last year. I have the excuse of living in Australia. According to Google Analytics, there’s a 95% chance you live in America or the UK. You do not have the excuse of living in the world’s most geographically isolated country. There are conventions, clubs, writing groups and all sorts of adventures within comfortable travelling distance from you.
Too scary? Join some fan pages online. You’ll find people there just as rabid about your favourite writer to stalk (frontrunner among my female writer friends is China Miéville, who manages to combine angry politics, a handsome grin and manly biceps to spectacular result). Hell, get on a message board and whine about how long it’s taking George R. R. Martin to release his next book, if that’s what it takes. There are communities out there. Engage.
Hell, if that’s all too hard, make a Twitter account. Find your ten favourite authors and follow them. You’ll find other people whose writing interests you quickly enough. (Shameless plug: I’m @Pip_Hunn! Say hi!)
When you do, you’ll find doors opening. People will enthuse with you about things you enjoy. Authors will (eventually) respond o your polite fan-mail. You’ll get newsletters telling you about books you might have otherwise missed. You’ll meet writers, editors, agents, publishers at conventions and other gatherings. Who knows where all those increased opportunities could lead.
Publication? Sure. Maybe. A contact in the industry? Pretty damn likely. But you’re damn-near-certain to meet other intelligent, like-minded folk, and form some new and enjoyable friendships.
And that’s worth the effort.
You expect Hollywood moments.
Magic happens. It may turn out that things go your way. You get the perfect agent on the first query. Your book might be bigger than The Da Vinci Code. Publishers may fight over who can write you the biggest advance. Your hordes of fans may swarm your house, babysit your kids and massage your shoulders with scented oils while you work on your next bestseller.
I wish you the best of luck in this.
Do not expect it to happen.
In real life, things don’t start moving in slow motion. Things happen in slow motion when you’re up at 5am, hammering out another goddamned thousand words, pugging away at you story.
In real life, you don’t get a training montage, three minutes of inspiring music and suddenly you’re an artist at the end of it. Your training is spread over weeks, months and years of diligence, intelligent application, and determination.
That just makes your eventual rewards all the sweeter. Savour each moment.
Enough with the sabotage already
You’ve got a list. Re-read it. Identify where your weaknesses are. Take immediate action to counteract at least one of them. Come back in a month’s time and see where your new weak spots lie.
Like any art form, you’re never going to be perfect. Don’t worry about it. No-one is. Strive for constant improvement, and your goals will take care of themselves.
Enjoy the process.
12. You can’t write. Either you can’t spell, or you can’t make logical, grammatically correct sentences that mean what you think they mean, or you don’t know where to put a comma, a period or a semicolon, or any combination of the above.
Judging by the submissions to webook.com this is by far the most prevalent reason books don’t make it…
13. being an extrovert. if you like seeing people, and talking for hours on end daily, don’t write.
Interestingly, Bart, I’m not sure how much of an impediment the inability to ‘write’ actually is. Revisions and studying Strunk and White will get you around most technical errors. Sure, if, what: Youre writings’ full of errors. Nobody’s going to enjoy reading it. But that can be learned.
Or you could pay an English major to look over your story. It’s not like they’re doing anything else with their time anyway
Could we refine that to ‘Don’t try and talk and write at the same time’?
I love talking!
For myself, I think I’d modify 1 and 2 to include getting distracted. It’s not that I purposly give up or abandon my work, it’s that I need a little more discipline to make sure that I’m writing every day, and not getting distracted by thinks like, say, blog reading.
refined talk and write thing: if you wake up, go out and stay out till’ twelve o’ clock, go home and sleep and repeat that everyday, don’t try to write in that 30 seconds your not out. better pip?
Well, one thing that I have noticed, being a mother of three anyway, is that some distractions are unavoidable. Period. There is no way not to get distracted when you have a three year old screaming “mommy” all the time or your fourteen year old and your eight year old are making the three year old scream to the top of his lungs because they think that it is funny. In order for me to write without any distractions I have to do it in the middle of the night. I could not even get through writing this without having to fight with the three year old. HELP!!!
Like what you wrote Pip – yes of course, there are all those impediments and you forgot “time” – the other deadly sin for me and naturally, I am inclined to agree with Brandi so much. You see, I have a 4 year old who keeps tugging me saying “look Mommy, I can spell” and persistence is the name of her game.
Overall, a nice article Pip Hunn – I have so much to write and so much to say but having trouble monitoring my own time towards making publication work for me. But the good thing is I do revise but I haven’t done much headway contacting anyone, so there it goes with a manuscript still hiding in the closet…
one of the bigger reasons i can think of is if you go to your publisher, sleep with their significant other, then punch them in the throat.